"just breathe"

          

Looking over my shoulder and slightly behind me, I felt like a character in the tattered, time-stained pages of an Edgar Allan Poe novel. Black clouds were barley above the trees, whose tips showed jagged edges against the cold skyline. Indeed, it was cold. Overhead a raven shattered the eerie silence with its haunting cries and then blended into the dark shadows. I assured myself that it was the icy drop of rain that had crept beyond my collar and landed on the dry skin of my neck that caused me to shudder. “If only the boulder to my right were a tombstone, and my camouflage jacket were a cloak …” I thought to myself. I shuddered again.

Yesterday, Scott Pura, owner of Northern Legends Ranch, Steve Grams, a friend and Texas Trophy Hunter television field producer, and I had spent the entire day chasing the distant echoes of the dominant bull elk while soaking up the glorious colors of the Canadian fall. We marveled at the shades of reds and yellows and greens that Mother Nature had painted amongst the poplar trees and scattered across the understory of the forest. The sunlight was brilliant, and though the air was cool, it was welcome refreshment from the 92-degree “tanning bed” Steve and I had left behind in South Texas. Yet somehow last night, while the warm, crackling fire of camp kept us peaceful company as we slept, the beautiful canvas of the Canadian fall that I had dreamt of had been slashed by the cold razor blade of Mother Nature’s disturbed sibling.

This morning there was no color, only shades of gray padded by the fog. The leaves that had danced in yesterday’s wind now lay dead and silent upon the dampened ground beneath our boots. There were no bugles in the air, and only the ravens, their voices shrill and unnerving, answered Scott’s calls. To say I was not appreciative of Scott’s and Steve’s companionship would be inaccurate. Were they feeling the same emotions as I? I dared not ask.

Straight forward, one step followed by another, I continued. The hair on my neck and arms were as stiff as the joints in my knees, my nerves wide awake and sensitive to each sound and feel of everything around me, my veins fueled by adrenaline. I felt alive.

We came upon an old tree, its bare branches hovering over us like fingers, growing tall amongst an assortment of short, thick stands of brush. Taking what little refuge it offered, we decided to sit and listen, hoping that soon the shadows would leave our hunting playground and take their foggy and wet playmates with them.

As we sat in silence, my mind drifted back to a hot summer afternoon in South Texas, when a long-distance phone call from Canada delivered the sweetest music my ears had heard in a long time. It was an invitation to fulfill a lifelong dream of hunting gigantic bull elk in northern Saskatchewan, in return for filming an episode for the Television Journal of the American Trophy Hunters Association. Through the remaining summer months I eagerly anticipated the day when I would finally feel the rubber of the plane wheels bounce on the runway and look out the window for the first time at this province of Canada previously unknown to me. More so, I couldn’t wait to get into its woods!

I rocked slowly back and fourth, trying to stay warm with my hind side planted on the cold, damp soil, and I thought about the drive from Saskatoon north to Turtle Lake. I remembered what Scott had told me about this area, its history, its culture, and its hunting. Scott was a young, yet confident and very capable guy, knowledgeable with a smile as big as—Canada (bet you thought I was going to say Texas!). We instantly hit it off, and I had enjoyed the past two days of hunting alongside him very much.

Also doing his best to stay warm and quiet, all the while miraculously keeping the camera equipment dry, Steve was positioned right behind Scott and me. Together, we peered into the cold, gray dawn, straining our eyes against the elements. Slowly the fog began to reluctantly move onward and upward and the terrain around us became more visible. As the shadows became figures and figures became trees, my nerves began to settle.

Still, it was frigid. And the remnants of the morning’s rain and fog were still heavy on my clothing, leaving a deep stiffness in my bones. Although we could now see—not yet clearly, but at least better than before—we still heard no cries from the big beasts we knew were lurking in these northern woods.

Scott patiently and methodically worked his calls.  Someone more talented with an elk bugle I have not met. Yet his efforts were to no avail. I had no trouble understanding their silence, for if anywhere within the soul of an elk there is even a remote similarity to man, then they surely had more pressing issues to consider than to chase after our invitations.

Scott slowly turned his head from left to right, raising his binocular to his eyes, then swapping back his attention on his calls.

Without warning, Scott reached forward and grabbed my bicep, firmly turning me towards him as he pointed in the direction opposite of where I was facing. About 200 yards away, standing tall and almost arrogant, was the elk that had haunted my dreams since boyhood. I had waited nearly 30 years for this chance.

Moving counterclockwise in a circle, the elk slowly disappeared beyond a ridge, the massive tips of his antlers the last piece of his anatomy to drop from our view. I turned back around, nearly to my previous position, and waited for the bull to continue his way up the draw, hopefully allowing at least one opportunity for a shot. I could see his body only in flashes as he moved methodically among the dense trees. My rifle rested along the trunk of tree as I stood against it, thankful for its support and praying my nerves would be equally as steady.

The weave of bark, branches, vegetation, and antlers were impossibly dense, yet there was a field lying just beyond this tangled mass of beast and habitat. Eyes fixed on the edge of the treeline, we each waited, hearts pounding like drums, as the seconds ticked slowly away and we inhaled the uncertainty of the elk ever stepping beyond the safety of the forest that protected him like an iron vest.

Yet he did. The giant bull walked into the open, pausing for nearly a full half-minute as he looked right towards the tree and the three strange figures crowded below it.

Now I’ll pause my story for a second to remind you that Steve was behind Scott and me. And the angle from his position did not afford him the opportunity to capture the animal on film.

“Steve, I’m on him. Ready?” I whispered.

“I can’t see him yet,” was the horrible response.

“He’s right there, Bud. He’s going to leave! Steve. Steve?”

I knew in my heart that Steve wanted us to shoot this bull as much as I did. We both knew, though, that we were there to do a job. And until we had sufficient film footage of this elk, no shots would be fired. It’s tough, sometimes, but we owed it not only to the outfitter, but to our viewers as well, to get enough tape of this enormous beast. If nothing else, it just seems reasonable that an animal of this magnitude deserves to be filmed in all his glory.

My heart slowly sank and my face panned my disappointment as the elk turned his gaze away from us and continued on his way, apparently uninterested in our little movie-making effort. As I watched him walk away, his antlers high above his rump, I knew that my chance, at least at this bull, was over. Then … .

“I got him Rusty. Take him if you can” I heard Steve say.

Too late now was my thought. Then Scott stepped out from behind the tree to stand off to my right and out in the open, and gave the loudest, most beautiful “stop-elk” bugle I ever heard! No way, not in a million years was all I could think. And then to my total disbelief, the elk stopped—briefly—and looked back towards us.

The smell of gun smoke hung over our heads, my gun barrel glistened with beads of rain. The smile on Scott’s face stretched from ear to ear; I just stood there dumbfounded. All at once my emotions were ignited and I broke into laughter, fists pumping, knees shaking, and amazed by what had happened. My friends joined me, whooping and hollering, our cheering the only possible release for the tension of the last five minutes. And then, as if by silent agreement, we all were quiet again. Hushed by the huge bull lying before us as we stood there soaking wet and soaking up all the wonders of God’s creation, we breathed in his musk and that of the trees and the wet and the soil. The scents lingered in my nostrils, mixing together in a heavy concoction that left me lightheaded. I shook my head to clear it, but it was then that I realized that it wasn’t just the musk of the bull or the fragrance of sopping dead leaves and dirt that I inhaled. No, here in this wilderness, in this place of violent beauty, it was the dream itself I was breathing.

And, suddenly, I didn’t want that lightheaded feeling to end.